The best way to approach SEM is a balanced approach and understanding which keywords are leading to the desired conversion.

Published: 19 Oct 2009

The best way to approach SEM is a balanced approach and understanding which keywords are leading to the desired conversion.

According to marketers, for some keywords, getting the customers to just view certain pages would be a successful move. Alternatively, if customers are not booking tickets for brand keywords, then that would be a major concern.

As far as strategy is concerned, there isn’t one umbrella strategy. Companies look at their keywords in buckets by strategy, some keywords are direct response focused while others are brand centric. Then bidding tactics unfold from this multi-pronged strategy. Regardless though, it is important to present messages across many keyword buckets and bid appropriately to ensure a reach that mirrors a particular strategy.

In order to know more, EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta spoke to Michael Rhodes, e-Commerce Manager, Leger Holidays. Excerpts:

Attribution modelling is very important in understanding how customers consume media and how this consumption affects bookings on a site. Based on these attribution models, travel companies decide upon the best search, bidding, and messaging strategies to meet their overall goals. How do you assess such approach?

We use various sources to build a profile of our site visitors and try and tailor as best we can the appropriate messages.

What should companies need to do to ensure that their campaign result in higher click through rates and subsequently higher quality score and lower CPC (cost per click)?

Utilise the tools that are available to build a higher quality score, divide keywords into more specific Ad Groups, develop appropriate Ad Copy per group, optimise the creative’s - keep in mind that optimising creative’s is a continuous process. Integrate Keywords into the copy on every page and manually run a deep-link SEO building project using keywords with the highest performance, in terms of conversion rate and volume, this will improve quality score while helping the forthcoming organic SEO campaign. Submit a Google sitemap, code the site semantically, and rectify navigation issues.

What should be one wary of?

Stay clear of any black hat techniques and companies who seem to be offering a lot for a little especially in terms of PPC campaigns and SEO.

What are the pros and cons of CPA and CPC advertising in terms of cost and the ability to track?

As far as CPA goes, it can be difficult to manage; balancing the risks of advertisers and publishers against each other makes the CPA model the most difficult to manage. Although better than CPC it is not immune to gaming; CPA might prevent click fraud, a major issue with CPC model currently, but there are situations out there where this is not the case. It can be only suitable only for medium/large companies, because small businesses can't afford to pay relatively high CPA premiums to publishers. It can also be let down by immature tracking technology.

Landing pages are essential for a successful campaign. The most important element of a PPC landing page is to convince the visitor that they have landed on the right page and this page has the information they were looking for. What factors should one take into consideration for the same?

PPC advertising is highly targeted so traffic will be focused. It's important that you don't confuse your pay per click visitors with too many offers and distractions from the original online marketing that brought them to your landing page in the first place. Make sure your page provides the information you've promised, and incorporate some of the same text you have used in your pay per click advertising. Answer all questions your pay per click visitor may have to increase your chances of a sale. Minimise distractions “keep it simple” providing something for free often helps you get more from your PPC advertising, the most important thing you can do to increase the effectiveness of your pay per click landing pages is to test, test and test again.

Do you think predicting user preferences is the biggest unsolved problem in online travel? How do you assess the integration of social search into online travel?

I think as the web starts to grow and the semantic elements start to build stronger associated data point’s then online travel and every aspect of digital commerce should benefit. As far as assessing the social integration aspects is concerned, you need the right tools to help you build the personas and nothing can beat the actual conversational element of social media.

It remains to be seen how the semantic web is going to shape up, but do you think it should make SEM a lot easier and more transparent to administer?

I think that the semantic web will bring many positive aspects to the way we used the web and the ever evolving digital communication protocols offered, however all the same principles as before of making sure that the content / services you provide are the best and relevant they can be because if not then it could work against you.

Google's algorithms are still quite a bit of a black box for professional search marketers. The semantic web should make it more efficient to create and manage online campaigns, because there will be less left to algorithmic interpretation. How do you assess this viewpoint?

I think it will take a few years before a streamlined set of rules can be defined but these will only be rough guidelines as the whole reason for the semantic process is to provide an improved online search experience with more relevant results. It can only get the best data if that data is provided in a clear and positive way.

EyeforTravel’s Travel Technology Summit

Michael Rhodes, e-Commerce Manager, Leger Holidays is scheduled to speak at EyeforTravel's Travel Technology Summit, to be held in London (November 11-12) this year.

For more information, click here: http://events.eyefortravel.com/wtm/travel-technology-and-marketing/agend...

Or contact:

Gina Baillie
gina@eyefortravel.com